Suspected war criminal: Modeste Hakizimana last week
A suspected war criminal accused of playing a role in the slaughter of nearly a million Rwandans is working as a taxi driver in Britain and cannot be deported because of human rights laws.
Modeste Kennedy Hakizimana, 41, is alleged by the UK Border Agency's War Crimes Unit to have helped Hutu soldiers kill members of the Tutsi ethnic group during the genocide in 1994.
As a prominent member of the ruling party which is accused of planning the genocide in the central African country, he is also alleged to have made speeches in favour of the massacre.
But for the past 13 years Hakizimana has been living in Britain and now works as a mini-cab driver in Redbridge, East London.
Hakizimana arrived in Britain in 1999 after Rwanda was taken over by a Tutsi-dominated party. He sought asylum, but his application was turned down. An immigration tribunal has since ruled he does not qualify for refugee or humanitarian protection in Britain because he is suspected of crimes against humanity in Rwanda.
But he has been allowed to remain because of a precedent set in the High Court which let four suspected Rwandan war criminals stay in Britain on the basis that they would not get a fair trial in their home country, breaching their human rights.
When The Mail on Sunday approached Hakizimana last week in the car park of a hotel in Redbridge to ask him about the allegations, he denied any involvement in the genocide and flew into a rage.
He refused to answer further questions and then called police and falsely accused the reporter of racially assaulting him and spitting on him. Officers questioned him and the reporter – then issued Hakizimana with an £80 spot fine for wasting police time.
The genocide in Rwanda began after a plane carrying the Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana, leader of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND) party, was shot down in April 1994. The MRND government blamed Tutsi rebels from the Rwandan Patriotic Front, and this sparked the massacre of almost a million Tutsis.
Hakizimana is a Hutu from the village of Rambura in north Rwanda, the same village as Mr Habyarimana. Hakizimana's brother Major Thaddee Bagaragaza was chief of the Presidential Guard to Mr Habyarimana and also died when their plane was shot down.
The immigration tribunal heard that while studying biology and chemistry at the National University of Rwanda from 1992-94, Hakizimana was leader of the Butare campus MRND party.
In 1999 Hakizimana fled Rwanda – leaving behind his wife and child – and came to Britain. The tribunal was told that since arriving, Hakizimana had fathered a boy to a Kenyan nurse but they broke up because she claimed he was aggressive. It is understood he lived in a council house near Romford, Essex, but has now moved.
Hakizimana had his first asylum application refused by the Home Office in 1999 but in 2002 he was granted exceptional leave to remain.
When it was due to expire at the end of 2005, he claimed indefinite leave to remain but the Home Office rejected this in April 2009 because it believes he is a war criminal.
Genocide: A young boy stands beside a pile of slaughtered Tutsi's in Kigali during the Rwandan Civil War.
This decision was based on a report by the UK Border Agency's War Crimes Unit which said 'there are serious reasons for considering the subject committed, aided, abetted or otherwise assisted in the commission of crimes against humanity and/or genocide'.
In August 2009, following the High Court ruling that year on the four suspected Rwandan war criminals, the Home Office granted Hakizimana discretionary leave to remain.
But he appealed against the Home Office's decision not to grant him indefinite leave to remain and the case was heard at the immigration tribunal in July 2010, where a judge dismissed his asylum claim but granted him humanitarian protection.
The Home Office challenged this ruling and a hearing at the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber found in its favour.
The tribunal heard that in the first week of May 1994 – during the genocide – Hakizimana travelled from his home in Rambura to the Butare campus. He claims it was to collect his books and studying material, but the Home Office alleges he returned to help identify Tutsis to the soldiers.
The remains of victims laid to rest at the Murambi Genocide Memorial, Rwanda on the anniversary of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide
The Home Office claimed that as the leader of the student MRND party he had admitted possessing a list of Hutu students which could have been used to identify Tutsi students for killing.
The Home Office believed it was 'neither plausible nor credible' that he had returned to collect his books and 'was much more likely that [he] had returned to participate in the genocide and had done so'.
In ruling that he did not qualify for humanitarian protection, the immigration judges said: 'The claimant may not have killed anyone himself, but his hands are not clean . . . he did know both what was planned, what was happening, and was complicit in it.'
Last night Charlie Elphicke, Tory MP for Dover and Deal, who has tabled a Bill to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights, said: 'It's extraordinary that someone suspected of genocide should be driving a taxi. They should be before a court facing charges.
'Anyone suspected of serious crimes like genocide should face justice and the Human Rights Act should not obstruct the proper course of justice.' Alp Mehmet, vice-chairman of the Migrationwatch UK think-tank, said: 'For reasons that will baffle most British people we cannot send him back to Rwanda. This cannot be right.'
The UK Border Agency said: 'Anyone accused of war crimes should be put on trial in their home country and even when the courts rule against us, we keep these cases under constant review. Meanwhile we impose stringent reporting and employment restrictions. We will not allow the UK to become a refuge for war criminals.' After speaking to our reporter, Hakizimana emailed The Mail on Sunday and again complained he was racially abused and spat on, and claimed publication of the story would breach his human rights.
He wrote: 'I entirely refute any allegation that I was involved in the commission of genocide in Rwanda and indeed any such related allegation.'
The Mail on Sunday left a message with Hakizimana's immigration solicitors but they failed to respond.
VOLATILE EXCHANGE BETWEEN MR HAKIZIMANA AND REPORTER
What happened when an MoS reporter approached Mr Hakizimana.
Andy Whelan: Are you Modeste Kennedy Hakizimana?
Modeste Hakizimana: Yes.
AW: Are you from Rwanda?
MH: Yes.
AW: I'm a newspaper reporter from The Mail on Sunday. We are looking at an immigration tribunal case. We understand that you moved here in 1999. Is that correct?
MH: Yes, that is correct.
AW: And you were a student leader at the MRND party at university?
MH: What is this? [He walks away and gets inside his taxi.]
AW: We understand that the Home Office believes you took part in acts of genocide? We are running a story, would you like to make a comment?
MH: I don't know you, man [starts engine]. This is assault.
AW: It's not assault. I'm just asking if it's true what the Home Office say.
MH: I don't know what you are talking about. I have nothing to answer with you, I have nothing to answer.
AW: Did you take part in genocide?
MH: What do you mean did you take part in genocide? That is a false allegation. You are assaulting me.
AW: Is it a false allegation?
[Hakizimana gets out of car.]
MH: Boss... I think that you are talking to the wrong person.
AW: Am I?
MH: Definitely yes ... So what I will do now, I am calling the police because definitely you are assaulting me. [Shouting.] You are an animal... You think because you are a white man you can just abuse me?
AW: No I'm not, I'm asking you a question.
MH: I don't know you, I don't know you, sir. I'm calling the police.
Hakizimana then called the police on his mobile phone. He told them:
'Police police police please... Someone is assaulting me. My name is Modeste and I'm being assaulted by someone. I'm just by Premier Inn hotel. Just by Redbridge Railway station... Because he's making false allegations... I'm just doing my job working, I'm a taxi driver, and someone came up and started abusing me... He's a white man... I need the police to come out. I need the police around here please. He's calling me names, he's calling me a criminal, he's calling me a murderer, and as far as I know I'm innocent... He's got a mission... He just came out of the blue. He's just full of racist [inaudible] he's a racist guy calling himself a journalist. He has been racist. Calling me a n*****. He's a racist man... That's what I'm suffering here... Racist, all those of things.'
... Now you play the Human Rights game - can you spot which of these asylum seekers have been sent home?
I AM SO SICK AND TIRED OF BLACKS PLAYING THE RACIST CARD, IT'S AS THOUGH THEY HAVE BEEN PROGRAMMED TO SAY RACIST AT ANY TIME THEY FEEL THREATENED. ALL THE REPORTER IS DOING IS ASKING HIM A FEW QUESTIONS, AND THE BLACK MAN IS ON THE PHONE TO THE POLICE SHOUTING RACIST AND HE'S WHITE HE'S WHITE AS THOUGH NO WHITE MAN CAN SAY ANYTHING TO A BLACK WITHOUT BEING RACIST, AND LIKE THESE BLACKS ARE SOME KIND OF PROTECTED SPECIES FROM THE WHITE MAN WHO KNOW FULL WELL THAT THE WHITE MAN WILL BE ARRESTED FOR SO MUCH AS ASKING THEM A QUESTION.
BLACKS AND MUSLIMS ARE ALL THE SAME, THEY HAVE IT ALL WORKED OUT WHAT TO DO AND HOW TO HAVE THE WHITE MAN ARRESTED WHILE THEY GO ABOUT DOING ANYTHING THEY WANT WITHOUT GETTING ARRESTED, BECAUSE IF THEY ARE, THEN THEY WILL PLAY THE RACE CARD AND GET AWAY WITH IT.
THEY MAKE ME SICK, THE BLOODY LOT OF THEM.
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